Pagan Christmas (28 page)

To protect the house at this important time, people decorated with evergreen wreaths and aromatic herbs. The Romans put laurel branches on their doors at dawn to ward off evil spirits.5 For the same reason, Germanic peoples put mugwort on the roof on New Year’s Day. “Sown on New Year’s Day along the whole courtyard and mixed with flax and salt, dill was supposed to be a protection for the whole year against evil spirits and haunting” (Abraham and Thinnes 1995, 50). Hangovers and heartburn could be cured with gingerbread leftover from Christmas, which was put into brandy and lit on fire before being consumed. It was important to eat this on an empty stomach.

Who were the evil spirits from whom the people needed protection? The Encyclopedia of Antiquity and Christianity gives the following explanation:

The totally negative connotation of demons (and, to a lesser degree, of spirits) as destroyers and enemies of humanity started when Christianity damned and downgraded the pagan gods and beings that may have been called spirits or demons in a neutral, good, or ambivalent way (Stuttgart 1976, 546).

“On the first of January, the Romans sent New Year gifts to each other, which were supposed to bring good luck throughout the year. Baked goods were among these presents” (Seligmann 1996, 45). Numerous recommendations and warnings were made about the brewing of drinks and preparation of food for New Year’s Day. The consumption of nettle cake, beer, and carrots was supposed to bring money and good health. Apples, on the other hand, were not to be eaten because they caused tumors (von Perger 1864, 202; Hiller 1989, 206f). It was also believed that one could prevent illnesses of the skin by eating a dish of peas on New Year’s Day. In yet another custom, you were protected from fever when you ate pea soup on New Year’s, but if you did not, you had reason to fear worse illness (Hiller 1989, 63).

In the Catholic Church, January 1 is the day of the circumcision of Jesus, eight days after his birth.

Magical, Shamanic Clover

Four-leaf clover is believed to bring luck and was considered a love magic: It was even supposed to make anyone who possessed it clairvoyant. Whoever found a four-leaf clover at midnight could expect a big inheritance. A four-leaf clover in the house was supposed to ward off lightning.

HILLER 1989, 156

Trifolium pratense L., Fabaceae (red clover)

T. repens L., Fabaceae (white clover)

Oxalis spp. L., Oxalidaceae (wood sorrel, lucky clover)

Lucky four-leaf clover leaves are a famous motif on good luck postcards for the New Year. But the only clover that offers protection against witchcraft is the four-leaf clover that occasionally can be found among white clover or red clover (Trifolium repens or T. pratense), which normally have only three leaves.

The druids were supposed to have worshipped the clover (Trifolium pratense) because of its three leaves. In the early period of Christianity, it was the symbol of the holy trinity, and in Ireland it was considered the national symbol—St. Patrick gave it this meaning. It wards off magic spells and devil’s tricks and strengthens weapons. A four-leaf clover is considered a lucky sign and this is why it is stuck on the traveler’s clothes without their knowledge (von Perger 1864, 195f).

The magic clover (Trifolium) in Johannes Hartlieb’s Herb Book (circa 1440, 99v).

Around 1440 CE, Johannes Hartlieb wrote about clover (Trifolium spp.), especially the four-leaf form, in his Herb Book: ”The masters of necromancy use the same. Other sorcerers make a great art with it that is not a decent thing to write about for this book.” In this writing, he alludes to but does not tell us the most important information, which is subsequently pointed out by the editors of the Herb Book: “A residual belief in old pagan gods can clearly be seen here and is in contradiction to the Christian view” (Werneck and Speta, 1980).

The “masters of necromancy” (black magic) were sorcerers, magicians, and conjurers of the dead—in short, black magicians. The legendary Dr. Johannes Faust, who died in 1539, was called a “strange Nigromanta” (black magician).6 Nigrumencia is one of the many spellings of necromancy and means “black fortune telling” or “sorcery.”7 Nigromantie, a new word of the Middle Ages, was coined by Isidor, Archbishop of Seville (circa 560–636 CE); Nekromantie implied fortune-telling by means of conjuring the dead. According to Hartlieb, sorcerers used a magic ointment called Unguentum pharelis for “exiting” or “driving out” (Hartlieb, Chapter 32). This is the legendary witch flying ointment, the medium of shamanic travel.

Especially because he described these remedies of the “ridiculed arts, magic and unbelief” in such detail—even if he does not encourage their use—he became the one who handed down the old folk customs; which in their original meaning, free of all the later additions, is the Celtic and Germanic knowledge in the pre-Christian belief of both peoples (Werneck and Septa 1980, 61f).

Associations of the magic clover with sorcery, traveling, and flying recall numerous myths that commemorate shamanic initiation, from both the Old and the New Worlds: myths of the shamanic consecration of the wanderer, the world wanderer, the bestowal of magic abilities by immortal deities, and the visionary bird flight. Here too are the stories of Wotan who seeks knowledge, the love-hungry Tannhäuser, and the somnambulant dreamer.

Oxalis, commonly known as wood sorrel or sour grass, is another plant that is sometimes called “lucky clover.” Like many other plants that have come to fame as part of the ethnobotany of Christmas, the ornamental lucky clover Oxalis tetraphylla is originally from Mexico. In Aztec, it is called xocoyoli, “sour nut.” The root is edible; all other parts contain oxalic acid. It was first described in the fifteenth century by Bernardino de Sahagun, a Spanish missionary, who wrote that it was a cure for inflammation.

THE NIGHT OF BEFANA, THE CHRISTMAS WITCH

See, there she comes, Befana

Over rocks, mountains and valleys

Rain, snow and hail

Make her voyage painful

But she still comes.

See, there she comes, Befana,

Poor thing, with her arms crossed before her breast

Covered with a coat of snow

Frost protects her like a shield

Her voice is the wind

When she comes around the corners.

Befana feels and sees

When human beings suffer:

Is a house without bread?

Is a child ill and near to death?

Is a family suffering?

She helps without anyone seeing it.

ITALIAN FOLK SONG (FROM KLEINAU 2002, 222)

Christmas witches are familiar to European children. Operas such as Hänsel and Gretel1 by the German composer Englebert Humperdinck (1854–1921) serve as Christmas season entertainment, and books like The Little Witch Celebrates Christmas (Baeten 1996) are given as gifts under the Christmas tree. Witch houses made from gingerbread are an important part of Christmas baking. Why are witches so popular around Christmastime? The tradition likely comes from the Italian folk custom of Befana, the Christmas witch.

The Little Witch Celebrates Christmas. Children’s book. (Baeten 1996)

The name Befana (or Befania) comes from Epiphanias (epiphany), the feast commemorating the baptism of Christ, also known as Three Kings Day in some regions. In Italian folk custom, this became “the day the friendly witch goes from house to house,” distributing presents the same way St. Nicholas does in Germany (Kleinau 2002, 233). In Italy, the long-nosed Befana—the three king witch or fairy—comes in through the chimney and fills the boots of good children with sweets, chestnuts, and other treats on the night of January 4. For bad children, Befana brings ashes, coal, and garlic. The night of Befana is Three Kings Night, which falls on the last of the smudging nights or twelve days of Christmas.

A witch under the Christmas tree, wearing a fly agaric-patterned scarf and distributing her gift of golden apples. (Illustration by Wilhelm Petersen, Mecki and the Seven Dwarfs [Köln: Lingen Verlag, undated])

The Befana custom combines the tradition of helper Ruprecht with the ghost army of the smudging nights and the typical motifs of the European witch belief. Before the Christian church gave the three magi from the east a steady place in our calendar, in Germany the night of the sixth of January was the holy night of Berchta, North German goddess of winter and witchcraft. Berchta—also known as or associated with Eisenberta (Iron Berta), Frau Bert, Frau Holle, Mother Goose, and Perchta—belongs to the ghost army of the wild hunt that races through the clouds at the darkest time of the year.2 During Berchta’s journey through the clouds with her followers, she descends to Earth, where humans lay a table full of good food and drinks for her in the open air. In return, Berchta bestows her favors. Berchta, “the shining,” brought so much light into the darkness that people were not only enlightened, they could also even be blinded. Thus it was important to protect oneself from direct eye contact with any supernatural power, as well as from the unwise use of fireworks.

Thus Befana is one of the spirits who haunt people in the smudging nights.

On the day of the three magi in the Colle Santa Lucia, all old brooms are collected and burned in a snow hole, and the people scream out: “Bread and wine, bread and soup and the hat of the witch on the chimney!” (Fink 1983, 151).

Mushroom-patterned Perchta costumes.

In Switzerland, sträggele (from the Italian strega, “witch”) are among the winter demons. Folk custom includes the very gruesome belief that the sträggele “rob all bad children, and tear them to pieces in the air” (Lussi 1996, 60). Similarly, the Germanic Frau Faste “tears out [the] bowels” of lazybones to teach them a lesson (Riemerschmidt 1962, 118). It is easy to see the similarities between these witches and helper Ruprecht.

The wild celebration called the Perchten run,3 still practiced in German-speaking regions, is associated with the protection and fertility rituals practiced during the smudging nights of old. During the Christmas season, people don dreadful masks and take to the streets with a great deal of noise and screaming in order to drive out infertile winter spirits.

To drive out the powers of darkness, the people lit massive straw wheels and rolled them down to the valley where, in the darkest days, they fertilize the icy ground with the light that plants need in order to grow.

Holy Bushes that Protect Against Witches

A hat or a scarf that has been smudged on Three Kings Night helps prevent headaches.

FRÜH 2000, 62

Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve (Sylvester), and the eve of Epiphany (Berchten night, Befana night, or Twelfth Night)—the three most important eves of Christmastime—are all part of the smudging nights. In order to protect house and stables from the much-feared “butter-and-stable witch,” the people performed smudgings with holy smoke. In southern Tirol, the following custom was still alive in 1983:

Witch Smudge†

Make a mixture of:

Garden rue (Ruta graveolens)

Stonecrop (Sedum acre)

Belladonna (Atropa belladonna)

Chamomile (Matricaria recutita or Chamaemelum nobile)

Plantain (Plantago major)

Asafetida (Ferula assa-foetida)

Stinking juniper (Juniperus sabina)

†From Höfler 1994, 117.

In Pfunders, even today, on all three smudging nights all rooms in the fire and food houses are smudged out by the farmers. On Christmas Eve, hats and scarves are held chest-high over the smoke; on New Year’s Eve, head-high; and on Three Kings Eve, as high up as arms can reach—as high up as the wheat shall be on the fields in summer, this is the wish (Fink 1983, 35).

For this reason the house is smudged with holy herbs known as Frauendreißiger (literally “women-thirties”)—a bunch of herbs collected between the time of Mary’s ascension (August 15) and Mary’s birth (September 8). These holy herb bunches are made up of seven, nine, thirty-three, or seventy-three herbs—the old pagan god and these so-called thirty flowers.

The following herbs are associated with the “women thirties”:4 hazelnut twigs (Corylus spp.), mullein (Verbascum spp.), witches’ herb or enchanter’s nightshade (Circaea lutetiana), raspberry leaf (Rubus spp.), yarrow (Achillea spp.), wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum), European bird cherry (Prunus padus), mutterkraut or feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium), common corn cockle (Agrostemma githago), valerian (Valeriana officinalis), parsley (Petroselinum crispum), plantain (Plantago spp.), primrose (Primula spp.), Bettelabbiss (Clematis spp. [?]), white sweet clover (Melilotus alba), rue (Ruta graveolens), Vermeinkraut (?), Toningkeaut (?), common toadflax (Linaria vulgaris), Schussmalte (?), horehound (Marrubium vulgare), red clover (Trifolium pratense), Holzkraut (Wolfsmilch [?]), vervain (Verbena spp.), paradise plant (Daphne spp.), chamomile (Matricaria recutita or Chamaemelum nobile), and fumitory (Fumaria officinalis). The most important rule in making the herb bunch was to take what you could get at this time of year.

Plantain (Plantago major) is an important plant among the thirty herbs, because it was also used in witches’ incense. The plantain root had to be dug up with a tool made from a material other than iron. The root was incorporated in amulet necklaces according to magic numbers. People were supposed to put three, seven, nine, or ninety-nine roots in amulets around the neck in order to ward off worms, fevers, and evil spirits; to protect against love charms; or to win a lawsuit (Storl 1996b, 104).

Valerian (also called witches’ herb, witch-smoking root, or cat herb) belonged in every thirty-herb bunch. In addition, it was used to make a “thirty powder” that served as an amulet to guard against lightning and contagious diseases.

A little sprig on the hat protects the wanderer during a night of evil and evil spirits. Valerian tea prolongs life and helps the visual power of the eyes… . In Villanders, valerian flowers are cut before the blessing and put in a scarf on the altar. On Three Kings Eve, the dried flowers were ground up and put on the glowing pan for smoking (Fink 1983, 73, 75).

With its green leaves and red fruit, the paradise plant (Daphne mezereum) is part of our Christmas ethnobotany. (Detail, plate XV from Dr. von Ahles, Our Most Important Poisonous Plants, 4th edition [Esslingen and Munich: F. Schreiber, circa 1875])